DKW 8

DKW has a hard time. Indeed it is low in tax with his little two-stroke displacement, but first it has only two weather-protected seats. Therefore its price is lowered, as a variant comes with an extra seat transversely rear under the hood. Anyway, it is not a real convertible, more a sedan with rigid sides and wide foldable cover and of course with all kinds of special requests to raise in almost any price.

Before the car further developed to a front-wheel drive and therefore will be more lightweight and less expensive, the company meets first of all a crisis. It will all tumbling strongly and leave hardly any stone unturned. At the end Rasmussen will have lost his company in exchange for compensation. But it is even still his company, now at the beginning of the crisis?

There the purchase of actually been liquidated Schüttoff AG. Perhaps even harder to understand the acquisition of Audi in 1928, the second company founded by August Horch after the Horch factories. Since 1915 Audi is limited company and at least since 1920 others have the final say in Zwickau. The failure of Audi is more likely to justify by economic mismanagement and wrong model policy.

Interestingly, in all these cases, the Sächsische Staatsbank (Saxon State Bank), the Schüttoff and Audi takes over first and then Rasmussen supplied with the necessary credits for their purchase. The result is a very dominant position of the bank and Rasmussens increasing debt. But that is not perceived in this volume at the Zschopauer Motorenwerken.

On the contrary, complained recently too long delivery times and distributes at least to the common stock dividend of 10 percent. Then comes the Great Depression of 1929 and suddenly one has overcapacities and too much ordered material for the production. Again, it is the Sächsische Staatsbank, which will add even more Wanderer and Horch and thus leads to the founding of Auto Union 1932.

Rasmussen signs this too, and automatically loses his exclusive right to subscribe for contracts, perhaps because the debts now press him. It is practically for him the beginning of the end. Relatively quickly, he is surrounded on the management board of dissenters and loses very quickly the pleasure for the newly formed company. For ten years thereafter is still processed. Then must be paid a certain amount of compensation, but after the war his son leads the dispute even further. 06/12